updated 06:10 pm EDT, Mon April 26, 2010

Google says Incredible enough for Verizon users

Google on Monday confirmed that it had dropped the Verizon Nexus One from its plans. Although planned for the spring, the Android "superphone" is no longer coming to the carrier as the Droid Incredible is now considered its equivalent. It reflects the "amazing innovation" in the Android platform, Google said in a statement.

The Droid Incredible is in many ways equivalent to the Nexus One as it has largely the same 3.7-inch AMOLED touchscreen, 1GHz Snapdragon chip, 3G, GPS, Wi-Fi and onboard memory. It also has certain advantages, such as more accurate input as well as a more advanced eight-megapixel camera and HTC's Sense UI. However, its used of a customized interface may slow down OS updates compared to the Nexus One, whose absolute reference UI lets it get updates as soon as Google makes them available.

For Verizon, the Droid Incredible has the advantage of a presence in retail stores as well as contract pricing at $200, well below the $530 unlocked price of a Nexus One. Sprint, the only other CDMA carrier supporting the Nexus One, still plans to follow Google's strategy of online-only sales.

The strategy may be a partial admission that limiting sales to Google alone may not have succeeded, as it sold just 80,000 units in one month, albeit before the existence of the AT&T version and sales to Canada.